Book Review: Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames

This is going to be a difficult one. Kings of the Wyld was one of the most successful fantasy debuts of 2017, in fact it outsold every single one by scores except for The Bear and the Nightingale (which is high up in my TBR list.)

There has been massive hype and buzz about this book, it sold like hot cakes and the rock band allusion was well-loved by the audience. It is a decent popcorn to be honest, but unfortunately not exactly my cup of tea. First and foremost, this is a funny popcorn, if you are looking for any depth and any serious stuff, this is not the book you want. King of the Wyld is for those who want a light read and a good laugh, and especially the male readers.

I must admit did not enjoy the first 100 pages but thankfully it got much better. It is a nice and entertaining light read in the end, but I found half of the humor too masculine and immature to my taste. Then again overwhelming majority of the fantasy audience is dudes, so there is no problem when it comes to the market.

The character cast is pretty cool in general, the monsters are quite entertaining and original. There are plenty of old school d&d style quests and adventures, I enjoyed those for the most part. The whole rock band and music scene allusion should be definitely hell of a lot of fun for rock fans, it is a pretty cool and original concept, just not my thing. Magic Moog was my favorite side character. He is hilarious and great fun to read. Every old school fantasy and D&D lover will be an instant fan of this character (and if they don’t, I shall question their sanity.) If Mr Eames wrote a novella or spinoff book of Moog, I’d totally read it. Ganelon the barbarian -tank of the group- and the bandit Jain are my other favorite side characters. Those two added plenty of bonus fun to the story. However, the band of old mercenaries don’t come off the least bit mature -they all sound like frisky 20-somethings. Except for Moog, he sounds like an old guy going a bit senile.

The protag Clay Cooper is a cool fella. Even though Kings of the Wyld was not quite my cup of tea, it had enough good parts to make me want to read the sequel, Wild Rose. It’s not all fun and giggles, however, there is plenty of violence and fast-paced fight scenes splattered with gore and a good dose of thrill & suspense. Overall it’s a decent popcorn to read to wind down and relax, but it didn’t impress me a whole lot since I am not a fan of modern slang and pop culture references in fantasy. I like the old times atmosphere and either historical-like or completely alien settings. The other issue I had was the Deus Ex Machina dose being too high to my taste. Characters, monsters and adventures make up for it though. Like I said, Kings of the Wyld has some great moments.

Verdict: If you are looking for a funny comfort read -especially if you are a dude or rock music fan or both- go for it, you will most likely love it. If you like original monsters, including yucky and hilarious ones, you will have a lot of fun. Even if you are the nitpicking puritanist type like me, Kings of the Wyld is still pretty entertaining and you won’t regret reading it.

Oh the cartoonish parts didn’t bother me much since it’s a comedy-caricature sort of book, so I knew I shouldn’t expect anything serious (evil elves with rabbit ears was absurd and hilarious at the same time) but I gotta say I don’t really understand all that crazy hype. It’s a decent popcorn and funny lighthearted comedy, that’s all. You’d think GRRM released Winds of Winter looking at all those rave reviews.